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Literature Review Catalogue Excel Template

By: Derek Jansen | May 2017

Completing the literature review is a lot of work. Failure to keep track of the literature you consume can result in you wasting precious time on double or triple work at best – and misquoting, incorrectly referencing or misinterpreting key literature at worst. You need to get (and stay) organised – in other words, you need a literature review catalogue.

We developed a template just for you.

Now you can keep on top of your literature using our intuitive literature review spreadsheet-based catalogue template. The spreadsheet will not only keep everything organised; it will also provide a summary of key metrics. Best of all, it’s free.

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How to use the Excel template effectively.

A quick overview. The first tab (labelled “Literature”) is where you’ll record specific details of all the reading you’ll do. The second tab (labelled “Literature Summary”) will auto-populate with descriptive statistics of the input as you enter data.

The last two tabs are simply scratchpads for you to dump any additional resources you find along the way. In particular, I’ve made a tab for theoretical frameworks (you can simply dump screengrabs here and caption them) and a tab for measures and scales (the same principle applies). Measures and scales are specific to quantitative methodologies, but you could just as easily use this tab to jot down existing questionnaires if you’re taking a qualitative approach. Ultimately, you are free to customise however you like!

Getting started.

The process is straightforward. For every piece of literature that you read, you log it as a line item. I’d encourage you to record everything you read. Something might seem irrelevant at first read, but you’ll be surprised how the focus of your research can change over time, leading you to inevitably ask the dreaded question, “where did I see that article again?”. Therefore, log every piece of reading, regardless of perceived relevance at the time of reading. You’ll thank yourself later.

While you’re doing this, I’d encourage you to simultaneously capture the literature piece in your reference manager. I usually recommend Mendeley, but any of the popular reference management tools will do the trick. The key thing is to capture the references while you’re reading (and not when you’re writing, as this breaks your flow).

What goes where.

For every piece of literature you read, you’ll need to capture the following details:

Author – Enter the author(s) surname(s). The format you use here is up to you – just be consistent.

Year – Straightforward. Enter the year of publication only – no month is required.

Title – Enter the title exactly as it is shown on the book cover, journal article front page, presentation deck, etc. If you can copy and paste, do so. It’s easy to make mistakes on the long titles.

Category 1, 2 and 3 – Here, you’ll create categories and subcategories, which you can use at a later stage to help you find relevant literature. It is up to you what categories you want to use and how much detail you want to add here. At the very least, your choice of categories should be logical, comprehensive and mutually exclusive.

Document type – Click the drop-down arrow next to the cell and select an appropriate document type, for example, journal article, blog post, etc. If nothing matches your document type, you can use the “Other” field.

Publication setting – the two main options here are academic and practitioner. Academic refers to the classic academic sources such as textbooks and journal articles, while practitioner refers to publications such as industry reports, company reports, industry magazines, etc. There is also a mixed option here.

Knowledge type – You can choose from two main options here – empirical and theoretical:

Theoretical refers to situations where an author is proposing a hypothetical theory or concept, but not testing it.

Empirical refers to situations where an author is testing the said theory by using some form of real-world observation.

Naturally, some literature will feature both of these (i.e. a model is hypothesised and then tested empirically).

Key arguments – Here you need to note the key takeaways of the respective piece of literature in relation to your research question(s) and objective(s). This is the most important column, so spend some time to provide rich, detailed notes here. Keep in mind that you will be able to search and filter this column at a later stage, so use keywords that make sense.

Context – Here you should briefly note the context of the specific literature piece. For example, what industry, country, competitive context, etc. did it take place in? When it comes time to justify why your research is worth undertaking, you will likely need to draw on this column’s contents to demonstrate that research has not been undertaken within your specific context (i.e. is it unique?).

Methodology – Use this drop-down to note the primary methodology (qualitative, quantitative or mixed) used within the specific literature piece. As with the previous item (context), you will likely draw on this when you justify the choice of methodology for your research (i.e. which methodology is commonly used in the field?).

Key quotes – If there are any specific author quotations that you feel might be useful in your dissertation, add them here. Remember to include the page number if you’re using the Harvard referencing system.

My notes – Lastly, if there is anything else you feel might be useful, drop it here. You can also create additional columns if you need.

Finding what you need.

Over time, you will build up a substantial list of literature. When you need to find something, whether it’s a specific piece of literature, a collection of literature within a category, or a summary of a specific author’s publication, you can use the following Excel features:

Once you’ve completed your reading, remember to have a look at the second tab (“Literature Summary”) for an overview of key statistics. As mentioned previously, some of these statistics can help you justify your choice of topic or methodology. Additionally, a review here may reveal that your literature is aged, or that you need to improve your balance of academic and practitioner literature.

Wrapping up.

In this post, I’ve presented a straightforward approach to managing the literature throughout your literature review process. If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, please do leave a comment below.

87 Comments

3lyojo
on January 14, 2020 at 5:27 pm

Hi, I can’t open the excel file, can you please check it?
Thank you so much for your helpful contents!

You guys are the kinds of people who should survive covid-19. You are the type of people we really need in this planet. You are a star. You really saved me from many headaches. Thank you very much for the useful videos and the literature organisation spreadsheet.

Thanks so much for your video. I have consistently received comments that my arguments don’t flow well and I could never figure out how to successfully fix this issue. Now I feel I have a plan and someone to help me and provide feedback if I still don’t get it quite well. Looking forward to getting an improved mark on my next Lit review
Thank you

hey your video is awesome I had to make an assignment on literature Review and it helped me to get an outline on how I should start ! i was fed of reading books and online articles. Your video served as a boon and clarified my thought process – how I should move forward .Thank you so much!

Thank you so much for the full tutorial with so much detailed information. I’m a Ph.D. Candidate in China. The whole syllabus of the Ph.D. program sucks. Thanks again for sharing all this helpful information. I hope your team will getting better in the future!